“Do I get any?”

Marcus gave Lilian a juice stained grin. Just like the previous time, she had asked him to climb up a tree to retrieve one of the bluish purple fruits—but this time, Marcus had the foresight to keep it to himself.

Or was it hindsight? The nature of the Warden’s loop made it rather difficult to say. But either way…

“Nope!” Lilian sulked, and Marcus took another bite. “By the way, you said today is arrival day, right?”

“Yeah. All the new arrivals come on the first of each month.” She paused. “It’s weird… not only do they come from different places in the overworld, which you would expect, they come from different times.”

Marcus rubbed his chin in thought. Based on how arrival day was said to work, he conjectured that the Warden’s loop was confined to the Wraithlands. If time repeatedly reset in the Wraithlands but not in the overworld, it would explain why the arrivals came from different times—they likely arrived in completely different loops, but everyone only remembered the final loop.

It would also explain why time appeared to pass more slowly in the Wraithlands relative to the overworld—it wasn’t really slower, it was just inflated by the repeated resets.

“That is weird,” he absentmindedly replied after a moment.

As the pair trudged towards the cave where Berret had dropped his sword, Marcus continued to consider what he knew. The trigger for the reset was the Warden’s death—or at least, that was the only trigger he knew of so far. The loop also only affected this realm, and it would eventually advance forward—it had to, given that arrival day was a regular phenomenon.

Marcus wondered what the condition for moving the loop point forward was.

He also wondered what other abilities the Warden possessed—he sincerely doubted that her only marks were the loop and the time stop. With such a powerful combination, surely she had filled her heart deck to its six mark limit.

One other thing was certain—the hero had to preserve his immunity to the loop at all costs. He had no idea how to handle such a ridiculous power yet, but it was obvious that the first step—the only thing that would allow him to try—was the ability to join in.

As the pair approached the cave entrance, he idly wondered how many loops he himself had gone through previously. The Warden had recognized him, so necessarily it wasn’t the first.

What had changed?

----------------------------------------

Flicking his eyes up to Lilian’s face, Marcus smiled weakly. “Thanks for helping out there,” he managed.

This time, he fought the three beans with Lilian’s help from the very beginning. Marcus had still resorted to sacrificing himself to briefly incapacitate the big one—Marty—with Hank’s lightning.

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Lilian scoffed. “What the hell was your plan there at the end? You could have died.”

Instead of getting up, Marcus continued to lie among the fallen black leaves. “I needed to catch him off guard.” He managed a small grin. “You could even say he was… shocked.”

Lilian laughed, but the hero’s expression fell. The pun just didn’t feel fun to make this time—if anything, it felt cheap and hollow. His expression continued to deepen. Why?

As he hauled himself up to his feet, he considered the broader implications of the loop. So far, events had repeated themselves nearly identically when he didn’t deliberately interfere—and even then, the results had been eerily similar. Were everyone’s actions predetermined? How precisely could he predict the events of subsequent loops?

If he repeated his own actions perfectly, would everything else repeat identically as well?

Brushing himself off, he decided that he simply wouldn’t worry about it for now.

“Seriously though. That was honestly really stupid. You know we would have taken him down eventually, right?”

Shrugging, Marcus glanced down at Marty’s prone form. Jake was still hollering impressively long strings of profanities from above, and Hank was completely out of commission.

“You know what, I’ll come clean.” He sighed. “I’m immortal.”

Lilian scoffed again. “Yeah, right.”

Marcus frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “No, I mean it quite literally.” He paused, taking a moment to meet Lilian’s gaze. “My mark—the only one I kept when I exiled myself—it lets me come back to life every time I die.”

His companion had turned serious now, her attention sharp and keen.

“I’ve already died once since I arrived—to the nightstalker.”

Of course, he had died more times than that—but after the loop, it had only taken him one death and a shift of his spawn point to slay the monster. Perhaps he could figure out a way to kill it without dying at all next time.

“Well shit.” Lilian appraised him with a mixture of awe and curiosity. “How many times have you died?”

Marcus chuckled. “No idea. I lost count after the first century.”

Lilian blinked. “You… I just—what?”

Marcus shrugged. “I come back as I was when I first got my mark. I still age, technically—but it turns out death is the elixir of eternal youth—at least for me.” He paused. “Now if you don’t mind, I think we have a few prisoners to deal with.”

----------------------------------------

“So, how did your discussion with Tarken go?”

Once again, Marcus had found Lilian by the well. He looked forward to enjoying the arrival day feast again—the scent of the dinner preparations wafted over the gentle afternoon breeze.

“He wanted proof, so I gave him a demonstration.” Lilian glanced at him and grimaced. “Then he gave me a lecture about considering the consequences of my actions.” Marcus rubbed his chin. “Honestly, it felt somewhat patronizing, but I do understand where he was coming from.”

“He has his own share of trauma,” she admitted, returning her attention to the well. “By the way, I’ve decided that I’m leaving for the Riverways tomorrow. “It’s one of the four major cities on the island. Do you want to come?”

“Sure, I’ll tag along," he replied as he glanced around for Berret.

The curly haired swordsman soon joined them, and the trio split up to deliver buckets of water. Before long, the sun had set and it was time for dinner.

As the last light disappeared from the horizon and the strange moon rose, Marcus silently considered his earlier questions about the implications of the loop. As his two friends made casual banter, he decided that it ultimately didn’t matter whether everything was predetermined. He would continue with his plan…

…Because really, why should he act differently? There was no use in making himself distraught over it. No, the hero would push through no matter what obstacles stood in his way—potential existential crises included.